Interviews

Stav Aristokle Hill of Berkeley Homes

Time to start talking retention in apprenticeships

Career Advice & News, Careers, Features, Interviews, News /

The housebuilding industry’s shortage of skilled workers isn’t going away, and even with more apprenticeship opportunities on offer, a high proportion of the young people learning these trade skills are giving up before completing them. We speak to Stav Aristokle Hill, REACH Apprenticeship Programme manager for Berkeley Homes (Capital) plc, about her thoughts on this issue and how the company is leading the way in adapting apprenticeships to keep talented youngsters on board. Is the industry’s urgent need for apprentices being taken seriously enough? National Apprenticeship Week this year triggered a flurry of commentary and debate on everything from the government levy to the target of three million apprenticeships by 2020. But there was one issue that was notable in its absence – […]

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Rob Clarke of motive8

A day in the life of… gym and spa consultant Rob Clarke

Career Advice & News, Careers, Features, Interviews, News /

With resident-exclusive fitness and wellbeing facilities a way of making a development stand out in the crowd, Rob Clarke’s role may be an unusual one but it plays a crucial part in ensuring the developer provides exactly the right fittings, equipment and layout to suit its new homes scheme. As gym and spa consultant at motive8, market leaders in the design, supply, installation, maintenance and management of residential gym and spa facilities. With 15 years’ experience in the industry, Rob has many roles within the company including gym and spa business development, health and safety advisory, and operations consultancy. Here, he talks us through a typical day in the motive8 office: 6.00am: Wake up and fuel my morning with a nice breakfast.

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Stephanie Smith of Atlas Residential

Career view: Stephanie Smith, portfolio operations director at Atlas Residential

Career Advice & News, Careers, Features, Interviews, News /

This week’s career profile looks at the growing Build to Rent sector of housing and speaks to Stephanie Smith of Atlas Residential, a company that develops and manages new homes development across the UK and North America. Please tell us a little about yourself, Atlas Residential and your role there. As portfolio operations director for Atlas, I oversee all operational aspects for the company and teams within the UK division. With our first three sites actively operational or nearing completion, our team has many projects underway. From continuing to grow and define how we adapt our North American best practices in the day-to-day customer services to upgrading to a new property admin and accounting system with CRM through Yardi here in the

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Dinos Papadimitriou of NestEast

Housebuilding and me: Dinos Papadimitriou of NestEast

Career Advice & News, Careers, Features, Interviews, News /

A civil structural engineer with more than eight years of residential development expertise, Dinos Papadimitriou brings overseas experience in the residential and commercial sectors to the London-based NestEast, where his role is development manager. He tells about his career path and what he loves about working in housebuilding. Please tell us about your role and the qualification/training/career path that took you there. After having run a successful property business in Greece developing villas and small hotels, I joined boutique London developer NestEast, who are based in Hackney. I am the central point leading on the construction of the developments, working with architects, builders, subcontractors and other specialists to support the rest of the NestEast team in delivering our fantastic projects to market.

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Justine Elliott of Lovell Homes

Career view: Justine Elliott, sales director at Lovell

Career Advice & News, Careers, Features, Interviews, News /

In the latest of our ongoing series of interviews with senior figures in UK housebuilding, we talk to Lovell’s Justine Elliott about what she loves about her role and the career journey she has taken to achieve her success. Please tell us a little about yourself and Lovell. I’m 42, mum to three children. I’m based at Lovell’s Tamworth office and live pretty close by too. I love my work, no question, but I love spending time with my family and trying where possible to achieve a work-life balance. I’m a pretty keen boxer, it keeps my mind sharp! We’re going through some really exciting changes at Lovell, historically we’ve been closely aligned to the affordable sector, but this is changing. Our

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